Innocent Monster (2 page)

December was never a favorite month of mine. Regardless of how good it was for the wine business, I found the season depressing on myriad levels. I wonder how many people were conscious of the subtle shift away from the phrase Christmas Season to the more mundane, palatable, and politically correct Holiday Season.
Holiday Season, my ass!
The older I get, the crankier I get, and nothing gets me quite as cranky as political correctness. Besides, who asked us Jews if we minded Hanukah being ignored? My questionnaire must’ve gotten lost in the mail. Now with the advent of Kwanza, there would be no going back. But there never is a going back, is there?

I had my own very personal reasons for hating December. Exactly thirty years ago, a handsome college student named Patrick Michael Maloney worked a shift at Pooty’s Bar in Tribeca for a student government fundraiser. When he left Pooty’s that night, he vanished into thin air. And while it’s not quite factually accurate to say I was hired by his family to find him, it is essentially the truth, the truth always being more important than the facts. I found him, all right, when no one else could: not my former employer, the NYPD; not hundreds of volunteers; not the small army of private detectives hired by the Maloneys. I also found a trunk full of ugly secrets and my soon-to-be wife, Patrick’s sister, Katy Maloney. What I kept was Katy. I kept the ugly secrets too, until they blew up in my face. I let Patrick go. If there was a going back wish, that’s what I would spend it on. I would hold on to Patrick Michael Maloney with both hands and never let go. In his vanishing, the seeds of new lives were born. In my letting him go were born the seeds of destruction. Look closely enough and you can see the crooked and bloody red line that leads from one to the other.

New Carmens Restaurant was a diner at the bent elbow of Sheepshead Bay Road in Brooklyn. While there were restaurants that Katy, Sarah, and I once loved to go to as a family, New Carmens was a special place for Sarah and me,
our
special place. It was where the two of us went for onion rings and vanilla egg creams when we had something like a good report card to celebrate. It was where we went for banana splits and coffee when young knees got scraped and then later when teenage hearts got broken. Neither Sarah nor I had set foot inside New Carmens since Katy’s murder seven years ago. That’s how I knew that whatever Sarah wanted to discuss was serious business.

My daughter was waiting for me in the damp outside the front door, the curls of her long red hair undone by the rain. She might have been Sarah F.J. Prager, a newly minted Doctor of Veterinary Medicine to the rest of the world, but to me, at that moment, she was just my sad little girl. When she saw me, she smiled, then caught herself and stopped. She made to speak and, again, stopped herself. What was there to say, really? It was only right, I thought, that we go back in together. Yet when we walked in, things had changed. The restaurant had been remade. The old gold and grimy vinyl booths and speckled Formica countertops were gone, replaced with polished granite, cold brass, and black leather. The memories and quaintness had been squeezed out of the place like breakfast juice from an orange. I suppose there’s no going back, not even in restaurants.

A cute girl no more than seventeen years old greeted us.

“Two?” she asked, thumbing a stack of menus.

“Two,” Sarah said. “Is Gus here?”

The hostess crooked her head in puzzlement.

“Gus?” “Gus,” I answered. “He used to run the place.”

“Gus died three years ago,” said a customer paying his bill at the register. “Massive stroke.”

“Shit,” I muttered.

Sarah shrank into her memories.

“This way,” said the hostess.

We ate mostly in silence and a little bit in mourning for Gus and for the love Sarah and I once shared.

“So, you want to tell me what this is all about?” I said, no longer able to stand the dark cloud that had followed us inside and settled over our table. “Is there something wrong? Is the practice you bought into not working out or something?”

“No, Dad, the practice is great and I swear I’m fine. This isn’t about me.”

“Then what?”

“Do you remember Candy Castleman from down the block?”

“What a silly question. Of course I remember Candy. She was like a big sister to you until she got married to that shithead who got her pregnant: Max Whatshisname.”

“Max Bluntstone.”

“You were in her wedding party. Your mother and I were there. I remember thinking how you looked like such a woman that day even in that hideous bridesmaid dress.”

“All bridesmaids’ dresses are hideous. It’s tradition. The bride is supposed to be the star of the show.”

“Well, you were the star of the show that day. Your mom cried at how you looked.” Oops! I’d strayed into dangerous territory. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For mentioning your mom.”

“This isn’t about that, Dad.”

“Yes, it is, Sarah. For the last seven years everything between us has been about that.”

“Not this.”

“Okay, then what is it about?”

Sarah reached into her bag, unfolded a newspaper article, and slid it across the table to me. I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to look because this was how it started, how it always started. Whenever someone wanted to hire me, this was how it began: a newspaper or magazine article shoved into my hand or pushed across a tabletop. Inevitably, the article would be about Marina Conseco, a little girl who’d wandered away from her family in Coney Island and wound up in the hands of a predator. It was Easter of 1972 and I was working in the Six-O precinct, the precinct that was responsible for Coney Island. Although we weren’t as sophisticated back then and didn’t have milk carton photos or AMBER Alerts, we knew that once a few days had passed, we were more likely to find Marina’s remains than to find her. But find her I did, alive, at the bottom of one of those old wooden rooftop water tanks that still dot the New York City skyline. Marina had been abused and beaten and thrown into the tank to die. Finding her was the only noteworthy thing I ever did as a cop and it got a lot of press. Well, what passed for a lot of press in 1972. From the day I found her, Marina and I have been inextricably linked together and in ways I’m still not sure I fully understand. Another story for another time.

“Sarah, don’t do this.”

“Dad, please.”

“For you.” I turned the article so I could read it.

NEWSDAY, FRIDAY NOVEMBER 16, 2007

BY ALICE WANG [Alice.
[email protected]
]

Nerves are frayed and tensions are running high in the little village of Sea Cliff on Long Island’s North Shore. One of this close-knit community’s most celebrated citizens, artist and child prodigy Sashi Bluntstone, has been reported missing by her parents to the Nassau County Police Department. When contacted by Newsday, police spokesperson Det. Mary Holt refused comment other than to say that the report was being investigated.

Sashi Bluntstone, now 11 years of age, skyrocketed to prominence at age four when her Abstract Expressionist paintings—most often likened to those of Jackson Pollock and Wassily Kandinsky—began selling for tens of thousands of dollars. She had several shows at prominent New York galleries, but serious art critics questioned Miss Bluntstone’s talent.

More damaging perhaps, were the serious allegations that she didn’t, in fact, author the paintings, and that they were done by her father, Max Bluntstone, a one-time performance artist. These charges led to an exposé done by Nathan Flowers of CNN. In the exposé, Mr. Flowers stated that “... while I cannot say who does do the work, I can tell you Sashi does not.”

That statement caused a firestorm of charges and countercharges and a lawsuit is pending. After Flowers’ report, Sashi Bluntstone’s work began disappearing from gallery walls and Sashi herself withdrew from the public eye. Her last show and public appearance was nearly one year ago. Very little is known about the circumstances surrounding Miss Bluntstone’s alleged disappearance, but it is clear this tiny village, one square mile in area, has been shaken to its core. Pradeep Patel, a physician and neighbor of the Bluntstones, summed it up well: “It is all most unsettling.”

Although the article wasn’t about Marina Conseco, it might just as well have been. The net result would be the same.

“Okay, I’ve read it.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“What do you want me to say, Sarah?”

“Haven’t you heard about this? It’s been all over the news.”

“I’ve been busy with the new store. You know how crazy your Uncle Aaron gets when we’re going to open a new store. Besides, since your mom... I just don’t pay much attention to the news anymore.”

“That’s Candy’s daughter, Dad.”

“I didn’t need a PI license to figure that out, but what can I do about it?”

“It’s been three weeks.”

“Does anyone have a sense of what really happened?” I asked.

“They don’t know. Candy and Max thought she was in her studio painting and when they went to get her for dinner, she wasn’t there. First, they thought she’d just gone for a walk on the beach. She did that sometimes, but she didn’t come home. When they called the police, the police said that she had probably just run away.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Not anymore.”

“No,” I agreed, “not anymore.”

“The cops and neighbors searched for her and found nothing. Now the police think she was...”

“Kidnapped?”

“Abducted,” she said. “There’s been no ransom demand.”

“Listen, Sarah, it’s awful. If it had been you, your mom and I would have been sick with panic, but we’re back to my original question: what do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say you’ll go talk to Candy about it. She wants to hire you to help find Sashi.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You mean you won’t do it.”

“Okay, yeah, I won’t.”

“Why?”

“You, of all people, shouldn’t have to ask,” I said.

“I’m asking anyway.”

“Because my getting involved with people’s lives this way is what got your mother killed and I’m not going down that road again.”

“Do it for me.”

“You’re precisely why I won’t do it. I’ll take the guilt over Katy’s murder to my grave, but that guilt’s just background noise compared to the hurt I’ve felt for the last seven years over what happened between us. Even in the worst of times, when your mom miscarried, when our marriage collapsed, when my friend Larry Mac committed suicide, I always had you and your love to hang on to. We were a team, me and you, kiddo. You were always the best part of me and as long as you loved me, I knew there was hope in the world. Well, the world and me, we’ve kinda parted ways since you parted ways with me.”

Sarah was sobbing quietly, tears streaming down her face. I wanted to reach over and wipe the tears off her cheeks, to make it all better like I had many, many times in her life. All it used to take was a reassuring kiss on her forehead, a hug, and a confident whisper from me about how everything was going to be okay, but we both knew better than that. There were things that could happen, that
did
happen, that couldn’t be made right. Humpty Dumpty wasn’t the only one who couldn’t be put back together again. And, frankly, I wasn’t at all sure that if I did reach out to her, my arms—long as they were—could span the distance between us.

“Please, Dad, do it for Sashi. She’s just a frightened little girl who’s had a very strange life.”

“Do what? What could I do? I’m one person and I haven’t worked a case in seven years. All my police contacts have died or moved to Florida.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” she said, a hint of a smile peeking through the veil of tears.

“You always did have my sense of humor. Still, I don’t even know where my license is, for chrissakes.”

“You’re good at this stuff.”

“I was always just lucky.”

“Right now, I think Candy would take lucky. Please, Dad.”

“Let me think about it, all right?”

Sarah stood up, came around to my side of the booth and threw her arms around me. She put her head on my shoulder and whispered, “Thank you, Daddy. Thank you.”

It was the first time she had let down the barrier between us since we buried Katy, and I knew right then there would be no thinking about it. I was back in the game.

NATHAN FLOWERS:
Hi, Sashi, my name’s Nathan. Would it be all right with you if we talked about your paintings for a few minutes? (Unresponsive, silence)

MAX BLUNTSTONE:
Sashi, come on, Mr. Flowers is from TV and came all the way here just to tell everyone about your paintings. (Camera cuts to Flowers. Smile gone. Expression hostile)

SASHI BLUNTSTONE:
Hi. (Disinterested)

NF:
So, can we talk a little about your work?

SB:
No. I don’t feel like talking. I want to take Cara for a walk on the beach. (Staring at her father)

NF:
Cara?

SB:
She’s my dog. She’s a crazy beagle and she eats everything.

NF:
(Smiling) Does she eat your paintings sometimes?

SB:
You’re silly, mister. (Giggles) Cara doesn’t like my paintings.

NF:
I do. Lots of people do.

SB:
I know that. (Frowns) Where’s Cara, Daddy?

MB:
I’ll get her in a minute, but let’s just answer Mr. Flowers’ questions right now.

SB:
Okay. (Still frowning)

NF:
Thank you, Sashi. Do you like your paintings?